Will Ford is a photographer printer living in the West Country. Educated at Canford, Dorset and King’s College, London he enjoyed a brief spell in the wine trade before committing himself to teaching. He taught Classics for more than fifteen years in some of the country’s top independent secondary schools.
Heavily influenced by his family’s artistic careers, his father’s close friendship with the artist film-maker Derek Jarman, and his time at Canford under the tutelage of painter potter James Cockburn, he continued to practise fine art when not teaching, preserving a balance between academic and artistic pursuits.
His interest in the photographic medium has endured since introductory darkroom lessons at school. Championing the use of film over digital, his workflow is entirely analogue from capture to print, to which end he converted a potting shed in his garden to serve as darkroom. Wanting creative control over the mounting and framing of his prints as much as over the making, he converted an old stable block into a workshop. Here he finishes his prints with museum-quality mounts and hand-painted mouldings.
Key influences in his employing black and white film photography as a principal medium have been Ian Macdonald, Don McCullin and James Ravilious. His love of the latter’s work led him to initiate a friendship with Devon photographer Chris Chapman, whose magnum opus evocatively titled ‘Wild Goose and Riddon’ remains a constant source of inspiration.
Drawn to the simple beauty of the natural world and man’s coexistence with it, his projects nevertheless explore complex themes such as identity, tradition and loss.